


Chimera

by themoononastick



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-15
Updated: 2011-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-20 11:14:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themoononastick/pseuds/themoononastick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you can't love the one you want...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chimera

He no longer fears the wrath of God – he only fears her. She could steal his very soul away if he let her. But he can’t. He seals it hard-fast away in the space where his faith used to be. Empty now, that place. Where once was belief, now lies only an aching to be free. But deeper still, under the bluster and the show is an ache to be caught by her. To give himself up to the way she makes him feel, or would, if he let her in.

~

She floats when she walks, buoyed up on a sea of grace. Beauty in her stride, in her confidence, in her. She makes his breath catch, makes him sweat, pushes him off balance until he forgets who he is. He has to tell himself that what she does is wrong. That her selling of herself is different to his selling of his time and his crew. He may not believe in The Word anymore but the lessons it taught him give him a weapon against her pull. A way to shield himself from the glare of her which threatens to blind him and makes him weak. Makes him less of a man than he wants to be.

~

Simon’s hands are soft and smooth. Refined Mal thinks as he groans into the circle of them. Like hers. Simon approaches him from behind, enfolds him but keeps his distance because Simon knows that his is not the name stuck on Mal’s tongue. Simon knows who Mal is thinking of as he touches him, who Mal is imagining and pretending Simon to be. And he lets him have his dreams. Mal closes his eyes when Simon’s hand snakes round his hip. In the dark he can see a thin wrist, delicate fingers and feminine charm. In the light he will only see hirsute masculinity. A hand that can heal, but only the surface of a wound, not its cause. Mal keeps his eyes closed and Simon lets him, doesn’t flinch when Mal calls her name. But Mal can feel tension in the breath that warms his neck and he knows that this allowance of Simon’s won’t last.

~

Her hair is the colour of space, of his freedom. Dark velvet that shines with hidden lights. Stars twinkle in the shadow of her eyes and Mal thinks that he knows what oxygen deprivation will be like when he looks in to them. A hazy fog creeps into the periphery of his vision, crawls across his mind, dulls his senses until he has to say something cruel to stop its creep. His words spark a new universe in her eyes. Still space-like but now only the cold and lonely of it and it reminds him of why they can never be.

~

Simon’s mouth is a hot and welcoming. All fever and ache and Mal arches into it. He likes to look down and see a dark head of hair bobbing between his legs, but he never reaches out to touch. If he did he knows that his fingertips would tell him the tale of the difference between the person in his head and the person at his feet and that is a story best left untold. Mal looks up when he comes, never down. Stares at the ceiling of his cabin and imagines her up above him looking on as he spills into the mouth of her substitute. Simon never speaks when it’s over, never tries for a kiss. That would be too close, too telling. A rough scrape of stubble where only softness should be. No matter how welcoming his lips are, they aren’t hers and Simon knows they will never be.

~

He named his ship after the place where he lost his hope. Thought that by doing it he could capture the spirit of the name. And he did. He found it at first, his serenity, his freedom, his joy. But then she came and he was lost once again.

~

Simon’s skin is silken smooth. Liquid-like, rippling under the touch of his fingers. Mal traces patterns on it from hip to shoulder. Imagining them a little narrower, a little smaller, a little softer, a little more like hers. Pale skin and dark hair on a head bowed low are enough to fool him when he’s lost in sensation. Driving in and out, slow and sure, eyes open-closed as he dreams whilst awake. Empty now, he presses his lips to the back of a neck and the dream fractures when he hears a gasp. Simon’s body shakes and Mal tries to understand why, but he’s brimming over with hurt and Simon’s pain is just another drop in the ocean that drowns him.

~

She’s leaving and he can’t stop her. Won’t stop her. Her eyes ask him to, but he has hardened himself to them now. He thinks that when she is gone he will find his peace again. But he knows it will feel hollow here without her.

~

Simon’s mouth is on his, pushing, insistent, demanding that he be recognised. Mal closes his eyes then opens them. Tries to see Simon for who he is. But he can’t, the vision is too ingrained. So he pretends. Lets Simon have his moment, his vision of how things are, could be. He allows it as Simon allowed him his. But he knows he will drive him away too, one day.


End file.
